


A Harmony in Grey

by Desilite



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Anatomical Discovery, Bickering, Corvids, Cunnilingus, Kissing, Multi, Paperwork, Voyeurism, heights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28307217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desilite/pseuds/Desilite
Summary: JAMES: So, Bertie looks at the crow in his gilded cage, thinks for a moment about the symbolism of that with, you know, his own life—in a cage, privilege around him and the, the golden confines of the contract, and it’s just, looks at the crow and thinks— is there, is there a moment of spiritual union between him and the crow? And just goes, “Nah,” turns around, and leaves the crow in the cage.BEN: I'm gonna just sidle up to the crow and just, just open the door.GRIZZOP: Go on! Or not, whatever.LYDIA: Aw, he’s lived so long in those cramped dark interiors that he’s finding it intimidating to leave them and experience the wider world. Wonder what that must feel like.BERTIE: Look, I didn’t empathize with the crow, I'm damned if you’re going to. Anybody else? Hamid? Hm? This crow is also short, hm?GRIZZOP: Hang on a minute—BERTIE: What? Grizzop! This crow is also short!GRIZZOP: No, I didn’t wanna beincluded—In which Sasha empathizes with a crow, Grizzop picks a hill to die on, Hamid makes a friend, and Wilde really just needs a hand.
Relationships: Sasha Racket/Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam/Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 21
Kudos: 35
Collections: When In Rome Secret Santa 2020





	A Harmony in Grey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeecrowns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeecrowns/gifts).



> You said you liked: Sasha, corvids, polylolomg, and “smooch you stuff”. I hope this delivers! Happy Rome Secret Santa! (Thanks to [platoapproved](https://archiveofourown.org/users/platoapproved) for the beta!)

She perches on the windowsill, one hand on the old stone beneath her, and listens to the university sweep past her. The clouds of the day have been scattered by the warm breeze, and there’s enough light coming from the city below and the streetlights on the floating islands to pick out people going about their late-night business. In the courtyard below her now, a few students are standing in a circle holding hands. Directly in front, a drooping streetsweeper is directing their cart down the road via a complicated-sounding whistled tune.

She’s already been thwarted twice in her attempts to ascend, swung herself out of her bedroom across thin air and onto a rising bit of masonry and begun the search for a nook where she could curl up in her blanket, only to sink a few minutes later past her bedroom again. She’s starting to think this place has it out for her personally, and she’s currently taking her frustration out by means of the dagger jammed into the wood of the wall beside her with her other hand, helping keep her balance.

She should be exhausted. Even for her, it’s been a particularly active week. Her muscles are still sore from the unfamiliar angles she’s been using to kill zombies and the endless staircase in the office. She’s seen far more recent corpses than she typically cares to. And since the moment she first woke up dripping blood from her back she can’t seem to get warm.

But her body recognizes this time of night and refuses to let her settle. It remembers the sorts of things that she should be doing, even as she insists on not filling her pack and making her way into the city proper. In a gesture of goodwill to that side of her, she’s slipped all the candlesticks on this floor into the bag at her waist. They’re probably self-cleaning or self-lighting or something like that, she reckons. She can ask Hamid later.

Another tower, gleaming more whitely than it seems it should, floats slowly past, obscuring her view of the circle of students and giving off a low note that makes her teeth ache. She’s pushing off the windowsill, aiming for a sturdy-looking streetlamp with curling iron supports sticking out of the side of the tower, when a movement in her right eye startles her.

For one exulting moment, she knows without a doubt that she is going to fall. She can trace her descent through the air, calculate which of the orange lights below she’ll shatter when she lands. She wonders if it’ll be faster than teleporting. She wonders if Zolf will find her.

Her stomach doesn’t swoop until there’s a pressure around her wrist, redirecting her momentum back towards her window. She takes another moment to appreciate her rescuer’s clear grasp of aerodynamics before she has to scramble at the stones, managing to get enough of a foothold to sink a dagger back into the mortar. She pulls herself back into the room, panting, before she turns back to the tower, sailing away.

“It has been,” she says to the tower, “a _very_ active week for me, and I would _appreciate_ ”—she kicks the radiator under the sill—"just the _basic courtesy_ of a way up. Regular buildings have them? Ones on the ground, with, with basements, and cellars, and nice unlocked windows and accommodating security systems.” She sticks her head out the window and mutters, “Cheers, though.”

The vaguely clawed stone hand that had grabbed her gives a slow, measured thumbs up, and retreats back to the awning over her window. She sights the same movement as before, and this time it resolves itself into dark feathers and claws and a beak that looks irritating even before it opens and carefully enunciates, “Mah!”

“Gods,” she says, “it’s you. Ba— Ber— Barry. Barry, what are you… did you come for the gold? I don’t have any, mate, I’m fresh out, I had… bills. To pay.”

“Mah!” Barry says again, and then, “Rah!”

“Don’t give me that,” she says. “Honestly, you should be paying us for what we did. A lot of help you were, in your nice office, with food and chairs and everything, while we were killing monsters underground. You ever been underground? Not very nice!”

The crow flutters and lands on the sill.

“Now I’ve spent a lot of time underground. I’ve fought underground. This underground, though, not good for fighting. Your underground’s too small and your buildings don’t stay put. I don’t like Prague.”

“Mah!” says Barry.

“What,” says Sasha. “What!”

“Wilde!” says Barry.

“What?”

“Wilde sent me. Paid me too, mah!” He holds up in his talons a shiny gold piece.

“Oh, that’s great,” Sasha says. “What’re you gonna spend it on, then? Gold… birdseed?” She appraises the bird for weak spots. “Brass knuckles?”

“None of your business, mah!” He hops closer. “Asked me to deliver a message.

“All right,” she says. There’s a pause. Sasha retrieves her knife from the stones. The circle of students in the courtyard below has come back into view. It’s smoking slightly.

“Never been underground,” says Barry. “Can’t see in the dark, mah!”

“Well, me neither,” says Sasha. “’S the benefit of having thumbs, I suppose. Carrying things. Like light. Hamid can make light you don’t have to carry, but he needs his hands to do it. One time, right, we were underground, and he couldn’t use his hands. Absolute nightmare that was, I couldn’t see a thing, was stabbing in the dark, Hamid kept crying, and Zolf was.” Another pause. “Zolf was there too. So that was one of the worst days of my life, we all fell in a pit, and it was _still_ ”—she slides the dagger back into its sheath—“a better city than this. You could get a proper view of that one. Lots of good food. Annoying tour guides, though! Could not get away from them.”

“Tell me about it,” says Barry.

“Hm?”

“Here,” says Barry. He holds up his other leg, to which is tied a piece of paper. Sasha tilts it toward the glowing tower and reads, _T_ _alking to Cult. Trouble with Liliana. Need your signatures in the atrium_ . _Watch out!_ He’s dotted the I in _signatures_ with a heart.

“It’s good to feel needed,” she says, and drops the paper to the ground. “It can wait.”

Barry puts his coin down and pecks at it. “You killed Kafka?”

“Yeah. Well, me and Grizzop. I think Bertie hit him a few times, too.” She considers. “I’m sorry?”

“Mah! I’m my own bird now,” croaks Barry. “Don’t know where to go. Looked for my tree, where I grew up. Gone.”

“Yes!” shouts Sasha. It bounces off the glass angles of the building shooting up past them, reflecting the pink and orange flames now burning in the courtyard. There’s some kind of shouting coming from down there too. “Yes!” she says more quietly. “Nothing in this city stays still for five minutes, and it’s not for any good reason. It’s just magic.”

“Got no one left now,” says Barry. She inspects him. He seems… sad? Sasha’s just about able to tell when Hamid’s feeling down—the crying helps—but fuck if she’s going to try and read a _crow_. She squints out at the night again. The streetsweeper has made their way to the courtyard below her and is waving their arms at the students. A couple multicolored sparks drift past the window.

“It happens,” Sasha says. “People use magic and it takes them away. ‘S why I stick to daggers, mostly.” Not that that always helps. She sighs. “Did Wilde seem worried?”

“Worried, mah!” Barry squawks. He comes out with a passable imitation of Wilde’s concerned and serious voice: “I don’t _care_ if she’s still enrolled! Mark it down as a leave of absence. Say she’s received a calling to terrorize passers-by in the Alps with you all.” He mimics the sound of something hitting a table, and then a scratching pen. Sasha’s impressed; it’s a neat trick. Would have come in handy a couple of times over the past month.

“Huh,” Sasha says. “Sounds incredibly dull.” She pulls herself up to sit next to Barry, hugs her knees, and scans her room.

“Do _you_ know what an atrium is?”

“Mah! No idea. I’ve lived in trees, and then an office."

“Where are you gonna go, do you think? If your friend’s gone, and your tree’s gone.”

“Don’t know. Guess I’ll find somewhere to put this coin.”

“Good plan,” says Sasha. “Could you go let Wilde know we’re coming? I’ll get the boys.”

“For a price, mah!” says Barry triumphantly. “I’m moving up in the world.”

Sasha uncurls a bit and fishes out another gold coin. In another lifetime, it would have fed her for a year. She puts it down on the stones next to the first one. “Thanks. And good luck. I hope you find somewhere nice. Even if it’s not underground.”

“Here’s hoping!” says Barry. He hops around awkwardly and ends up with one coin in each foot. “See you around, mah!”

Sasha watches him flap away into the night. She glances down, to where the interrupted ritual seems to have summoned large quantities of blue and green goo all over the courtyard. She wonders if this was the desired effect. She hopes whatever Wilde needs them for will tire her out enough to fall asleep.

Hopping down from the sill, she deposits her blanket on the bed and stretches out her arms and legs, touching the knives at her ankles. By the time she makes it back to the window, Barry is out of sight, and the students are mopping at the courtyard floor, overseen by the irritated custodian. She takes a breath and swings herself once again into space.

* * *

She lands soundlessly on Grizzop’s windowsill. She can’t help her silhouette, but her face is hidden by the shadow of the overhang, more out of habit than fear. Squinting into the room, she makes out Grizzop, who’s pacing back and forth in his darkened bedroom. When she ducks into the room, he whips his head around to her and drops his shirt, which he seems to have been carrying in his hands.

“All right,” Sasha says.

“Sasha!” he exclaims. He does not seem surprised to see her entering through the window. “I was just getting ready for bed. I couldn’t find any candlesticks on the whole floor, or I’d turn on a light for you. What’s going on?”

“Do you remember that crow?”

“Yeah, Barry. What about him?"

“Seems like he’s taking commissions now. Maybe he’s starting his own outstanding mercenary company. Anyway, he says—” She cuts off at a faint metallic thump. “What’s that?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Grizzop says, “but it’s been happening all evening. I’ve been trying not to think about it, to be honest. Probably something horrible one of the students is conjuring.” He picks up his shirt and drapes it over a chair. His room is furnished the same as Sasha’s, although at some point he’s pushed his bed into the far corner and the desk next to the door, she guesses to improve the room’s defensibility. That explains the scraping noises earlier in the evening, which had first driven her to try for the roof.

“Right. Yeah, well, he says Wilde wants us to come see him. I think he might have been lonely? Barry, not Wilde. Wilde may be lonely too, but he seems like the kind of person who could handle that.”

“Was Barry angry that we killed Kafka?” asks Grizzop. “Also, is it urgent? I am very tired and not really in the mood to deal more with Wilde!”

Sasha leans against the wall by the window and rubs at her eyes. She says, “He’s not _that_ bad, really. We just keep meeting him in bad situations. And I don’t think Barry was angry at us. And honestly, he’s a crow. We could take him.”

Grizzop laughs. “I’ve never fought a crow before! Could be fun.” He sits at the foot of the bed and starts untying his boots. Sasha shrugs off her jacket and sits on it in the window. The metallic thump thumps again—she guesses it’s coming from the next room over. Grizzop says, “I’m glad he’s free now? Anyway, should we fetch Hamid?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha starts, and then yawns, ears popping. “I don’t know that it’s that urgent, really, Grizzop. How are you holding up?”

“Tired,” Grizzop says again. “That was a _lot_ of stairs. And we didn’t get any sleep before _that_ because we were participating in what I can only assume was Paladin’s First Interrogation. What did yours do? Mine was _hilarious_.”

“Mine mostly wanted to kill me, I think,” she mumbles. “I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t.”

“Hey, none of that,” says Grizzop. “The Cult of Mars are bad news anyway, and, with all due respect, there’s clearly something wrong with their god if they can’t see that you— what is _that_.”

“You said it was probably a student doing some magic,” says Sasha, stretching, “but I think Hamid has the room next to this, yeah?”

“No, not that. On you.” He points.

“What?” Sasha hurriedly checks for the knives at her belt, mortified that one of them might be showing.

“There’s, like. A hole.”

“You mean my belly button?” Sasha says incredulously. “Aren’t you a doctor or something? Wait, do you not have one?”

“I don’t heal naked people!” Grizzop’s voice has been increasing in pitch the more he pursues this line of questioning. Sasha’s going to guess _embarrassed_. “It works through clothes. And I try to respect the privacy of people without shirts on. Honestly, I was just wondering.”

Sasha squints at him. In the light coming from the window, he does not appear to have a navel. He does appear to have strong, wiry arms, one of which is unfortunately engaged in directing a hand in picking at his teeth. She takes off her shirt, careful of the knives strapped at her wrists.

“No, look, it’s normal,” she says, poking at her own stomach and a bit unsure.

“What does it… do?” Grizzop says, suddenly sounding a bit strangled.

“I don’t know! It just is! I’m sure you have bits you don’t know what they do!” Her voice echoes back at them through the window and she becomes aware of how unprotected her back is at the moment. She slides back into the room and over to the bed. The thumping noise comes again.

“No, hang on a minute, how can you _not know_ —”

“How can _you_ not know! What if you had to, like, put me back together, and you didn’t know what any of my parts did! I knew your lot were a bit to the point, but—”

“ _My_ lot? I—”

There’s the loudest thump yet, followed immediately by a knock at the door, and as one they turn and shout, “ _What!_ ” Grizzop’s ear whaps Sasha right in the nose and she splutters.

Hamid opens the door tentatively. He’s wearing an honest-to-gods nightgown and night cap, and he’s maintaining a glowing purple orb of light in his hand, and he’s being closely tailed by an entire uprooted radiator. Hamid’s easy—definitely _worried_ and possibly _scared_ , although she’s seen the kind of damage he’s capable of. The radiator is anyone’s guess. At the moment, it most closely reminds her of an enthusiastic puppy.

“Oh!” he says. “So sorry to bother you, am I… interrupting? Something?”

The radiator performs a little hop, moving closer to Hamid, who squeaks faintly.

“Hamid, what is going on?” Sasha asks. “Interrupting?”

“You’re both… never mind. I was just wondering if I could sleep in here tonight? My heater has gotten a bit excitable.” He gestures to the radiator, which rattles encouragingly and leans against the backs of his legs. “I think there’s an elemental in it."

“ _Exactly_!” says Sasha. “Nothing in this city! Stays put!” Hamid looks confused.

“Hamid, come in here,” Grizzop says. “Close the door.”

In the last glimpse Sasha gets of the radiator before the door closes, she sees it lean back and tilt to one side. She could swear she’s seen Hamid perform the same sulky maneuver when he’s having one of his talks, the impressive kind that solve an unstabbable problem and generally make up for him being awful at running away. Through the door, she hears the _thump, clang_ of the radiator retreating down the hall.

“Actually, Hamid, I was going to come get you—” Sasha starts, at the same time as Grizzop says, “Could you please take off your shirt?”

“Is there something wrong, Sasha?” he says, and he’s reaching for the hem of his nightgown before he seems to notice and whips his hands away. “Hang on, my _shirt_?”

“Do you have a belly hole!” Grizzop shouts. “Apparently I need to solve this problem before I can be a good healer!”

“You can’t just tell a person to take off their shirt!” Hamid shouts back. “I come in here and there’s clearly _something_ going on between you two—”

“I just asked a simple question and now it’s all _let’s yell at Grizzop!_ which, being perfectly honest, I’ve about had enough of—”

Sasha notices another blur to her right and hops back off the bed, dodging Grizzop’s wildly waving arms and Hamid’s bare feet. Barry’s back in the window, and she leans against the sill and feels the breeze across her chest.

“All right, Barry?”

“Mah! You found your friends. That’s probably good.”

“Did you tell Wilde we’re coming?”

“Did! Wilde says,” begins Barry, and then lets out a string of technical-sounding phrases that activate the corner of Sasha’s brain where she stores her alibis, right next to the good threats she’s saving up to use on various people when she goes back to London. Barry concludes, in Liliana’s voice, “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” It’s a fine impression, in that it irritates Sasha even further.

“All right,” Sasha says. “Was there anything else?”

“Dropped my coin, mah!” says Barry. “And Wilde hit the desk with his forehead. It was very funny. What are they doing?"

Sasha glances over her shoulder to see Grizzop and Hamid, faces about four inches apart. Grizzop’s claws are gesturing dangerously close to Hamid’s nose. Hamid’s in nothing but his pants and is trying to loom. It reminds her of the situation on the airship, but infinitely more adorable. She turns to Barry again. “No idea, mate. The people I associate with can get very worked up. If you stick around, they might kiss.”

Barry lets out a few caws. Maybe laughter? She’s not sure that counted as a crow joke. “You have any more messages for me? My fee has increased. Supply and demand, mah!”

“Nah. Good luck in the wider world, though. Hope you find good people. Birds, whatever. Watch out for the magic ones.”

“Noted!” says Barry. “Gonna go get my coin back!”

Sasha watches him fly off, past a constellation of greenhouses sailing slowly past Grizzop’s window. For all she only half understands most of what comes out of his beak, she’s glad he made it out of his cage. She’s glad whatever weird relationship he had with Kafka is over now. She breathes in the thin air of upper Prague and hopes Zolf is doing all right, wherever he is below her.

She turns around to see Grizzop stood on the bed, still shouting at Hamid about making assumptions, who’s pacing the same route Grizzop was earlier and explaining vestigial structures.

“—and it’s common knowledge, really, enough of the sentient races are mammals that it’s worth it even for goblins and gnomes to learn something about—

“—just because _some of us_ have met up with two exes this week doesn’t mean everyone’s got it on the mind all the time! Just because—”

“Lads,” says Sasha, “I’ve just had a message from an, uh, from Bertie, about Ba— no, the other way ‘round.” Neither of them appears to be listening to her. She goes over to Grizzop and catches one of his flailing hands, and he falls immediately silent, staring at her face.

“And _really_ , I know it’s a lot coming from me, but if you paladins just picked up a _book_ every now and then, _maybe_ you wouldn’t say such horrible things all the time— Grizzop?”

Grizzop appears to be blushing, although it’s hard to tell in the dim light. Sasha stares back at him and lowers her hand, still holding his. Hamid whispers, from the other side of the room, “ _See?_ Oh my god, you guys.”

Grizzop leans forward and in the time it takes for Sasha’s heart to stop he pecks her on the mouth. She can feel him smile against her face before he pulls away. Her heart starts up again, but much faster. She squeezes his hand.

“Well then,” says Hamid emphatically. Sasha looks over to see him moving to retrieve his pajamas. “I will leave you to it.”

“Stay there,” Grizzop says firmly. Hamid stills. “Wait, actually, come over here, I want to see something.” Hamid joins their tableau, Grizzop still standing on the foot of the bed and Sasha just figuring out how to move her face again. She’s hoping her brain can catch up with the proceedings soon, because none of the impulses it’s giving her right now seem helpful in any way. She’s torn between running a hand through Hamid’s hair and trying to see if Grizzop’s up for another kiss when Grizzop jumps in the air and lands on his rear on the mattress, bouncing a little. He inspects Hamid’s face, in which Sasha reads _frustration_ and a bit of _vindication_ , kisses him solemnly on the nose, and then ducks down to compare their midriffs.

“Ha!” he exclaims. “Look, Sasha’s got this belly hole, and Hamid doesn’t. That’s _weird_ , right? That’s not normal!”

Sasha’s just wrested back enough control to open her mouth again when Hamid takes Grizzop under the chin and brings his face back up level to his own. Grizzop looks to Sasha with a _help me_ sort of expression, but before she can move Hamid has pressed his mouth to Grizzop’s. After a few seconds, it seems as if Grizzop isn’t going to need any help after all, and Sasha takes the opportunity to sink down to sit on the bed and give her knees, which have gone a bit wobbly, a break. Whatever’s going on _there_ is a bit beyond her pay grade. She’s sure there was something she was about to do a minute ago, but right now she’s distracted by the smirk she can see on Hamid’s face between kisses and the faint noise Grizzop lets out when Hamid changes angles.

When Hamid lets go of Grizzop’s face, he straightens up and turns to Sasha, and his smug grin falters a bit. She gives in and runs her hand through his curls, and he sighs happily. Sasha checks on Grizzop but quickly realizes she’s no more likely to read that expression than Wilde is to start juggling knives.

“Now,” says Hamid, “Grizzop, would you mind if I slept in here? Your room hasn’t got a heater, so it should be fine. And Sasha, what _are_ you doing here?”

“What?” says Grizzop, dazed.

“Shit!” says Sasha. She goes to stand up and retrieve her clothes but Grizzop’s hand darts out to grab her wrist, where the gargoyle had swung her around earlier. She can feel Grizzop’s claws dig into her skin. She could free herself, easily. She could flip him over and hold a knife to the back of his neck. She sits back down at the foot of the bed, but sticks a pin in that thought for later.

“I think,” Grizzop says, still sounding a bit loopy and a bit out of breath, “I think you two should kiss.”

“Hm,” says Hamid, “Grizzop, I’m not sure that’s—”

“Sasha?” says Grizzop. Sasha draws on years of study and tries to school her face into an expression that communicates tentative support for Grizzop’s plan. Grizzop turns back to Hamid. “Kiss her.”

Hamid’s eyes go very wide before Sasha takes the initiative and leans in. She stops just short of his face and inspects it—definitely _surprised_ and, she’s pretty sure, _eager_. He closes the gap and brings his hands up to her face.

He’s very warm. She can feel Grizzop’s attention on them and twists her hand around in his grasp to hold his again. She notices that he’s gone uncharacteristically still, and then Hamid opens his mouth against hers and she stops noticing Grizzop for a few moments. She’s not really considered kissing Hamid before; he always seemed to be operating on a different level than her when it came to that. But he smells good, and his tongue is doing some interesting things in her mouth, so she slides the fingers of her other hand into his soft hair and holds on. This, she thinks, is definitely one of their better plans.

When they separate, there’s a mutual silence before Grizzop lets out a high-pitched giggle and Hamid raises an eyebrow and tilts his head toward the bed, which is definitely the right size for two humans, or possibly one human, a halfling, and a tallish goblin. Grizzop scoots back, tugging Sasha after him, and Hamid starts pulling off one of his _socks_ for some reason and moving toward the door, and Sasha tries desperately to pull her thoughts together before _whatever is going on in this room_ drives them all out of her head like rats out of a burning shed.

“Atrium!” she says, triumphant. “Hamid, where is the atrium?”

“What?” says Hamid distractedly. Grizzop drops her hand and starts shimmying out of his trousers.

“You remember Barry?”

“Oh, screw Wilde,” says Grizzop. “I mean, say what you will about the man, he can handle some _admin_ —”

“Wait, I think,” says Sasha. She turns to Grizzop and keeps her eyes resolutely fixed on his face, despite the exciting amount of activity happening farther down. “I think Wilde’s dealing with Liliana,” she mutters. “We might actually have to go rescue him, or something.”

Grizzop lets out a high and exasperated sound and rolls over a bit. “Hamid, wait,” he says. Hamid stops with his hand on the door handle.

“I’m not saying we have to go _now_ ,” she mumbles, and scooches a bit farther up the bed, fiddling with one of her wrist sheaths. “Also, what are you doing to Hamid?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” mutters Grizzop, and then more loudly, “Hamid, come here.” Hamid turns around and sees Grizzop naked on the bed, with Sasha leaning over him, and seems to lose the thread a bit himself.

“I think we need to,” says Grizzop, before firmly closing his mouth as Sasha tugs on one of his ears. It’s exactly as soft as it looks, she’s pleased to find. She lets go, and Grizzop lets out a long breath.

“Okay, one: time and a place, Sasha. Two: Hamid—”

“Is this _not_ the time and place, Grizzop!”

Grizzop makes a few incoherent noises, which gives Hamid enough time to inch open the door and do something with his sock. He closes it and stands in the middle of the room. “Were you saying something, Grizzop?”

“Are you cold, Hamid?” Sasha interrupts. She doesn’t think he is, but she’s a bit cold, and she’s wondering how close you have to be to Hamid to feel the warmth coming off of him. Possibly she’ll have to do tests.

“I am a bit, Sasha, thanks for asking!” Hamid says brightly. He seems to have recovered somewhat, and as he takes measured steps towards the bed she hears Grizzop’s breath catch at the same time hers does. He’s very pretty, and very undressed, and he’s almost made it over to them when something sharp hits Sasha in the back of the head. She swears but keeps her balance, and looks over her shoulder to see Barry careening around the room, weighed down by the pouch looped over his neck.

“Really! Seriously!” she says.”Ow!"

“Oo, this is great,” says Grizzop, craning around Sasha. “Do you have a message for us?"

“From Wilde! Says he really needs those signatures!” Barry says, hovering lopsidedly. Grizzop scoffs and Sasha feels him start scrabbling at her other wrist sheath. “Gave me lots of gold. Possibly I’m supposed to give it to you to come see him, but fat chance of that! I’m rich! Don’t even know what number comes after this. I can only count to thirty."

“Thanks for the update,” says Sasha. “Do you think you might want to leave some of that here anyway? Just to let you fly away?”

Barry laughs so hard he almost hits the ground before righting himself. Sasha tries not to feel offended. 

“Oh, that sounds serious,” Hamid says hesitantly. Sasha watches Barry bounce drunkenly off the wall and back out into the night. “Maybe we should—”

“Hamid, get over here,” Sasha tries, but before she can observe the results Grizzop is pulling her face down to his and she’s suddenly much more interested in running other experiments, mostly kissing-related. She figures it took her a few hours to work out her bombs, and Grizzop can’t be much more complicated. When she works up the nerve to run her tongue along them, his teeth are likewise just as sharp as they look.

Her mind goes a bit fuzzy when he starts in on her neck. She retaliates by licking him right on the ear and feels his breathing pick up. She slides her hands up from his stomach to hold his head in place, plucking at the edges of his ears, and he grasps her wrists.

She’d nearly forgotten about him, but it turns out she _can_ feel the heat of Hamid’s hand a second before he runs it from her neck down her spine. The bed dips the slightest bit when he joins them, making a questioning sound as he starts in on Sasha’s trousers. She wiggles to help him along, still inspecting Grizzop’s scalp with her fingers as he kisses her collarbone and shivers under her hands. When the fabric catches on the knives at her calves, she rolls off of Grizzop and bends to unstrap them.

Hamid takes up her post at Grizzop’s mouth and simultaneously pulls down his pants, at which point Grizzop collapses completely back on the bed. Sasha watches with interest as Hamid makes his way from Grizzop’s mouth down to his stomach, finally drawing a few noises out of him that hit Sasha somewhere in her own belly. She reaches out to stroke Hamid’s ear. Her results are inconclusive, so she tries again with her tongue, which does have the intended effect, and Hamid sighs against Grizzop’s stomach and tilts his head toward her.

Presently, Sasha mumbles, “Hang on,” and pulls back for a moment to deposit her daggers carefully on the floor. She reemerges to see Hamid kissing Grizzop’s hip and some _very_ interesting movement happening between Grizzop’s legs. They both look over at her, and she wants to tell them to keep going and she wants Hamid to try that on her and for once she wants them to _keep_ looking.

Hamid kneels back on his calves and brushes his hair out of his face. He reaches a hand out and slides it up Grizzop’s thigh, stopping right at the apex. Grizzop twitches a bit but keeps his eyes on her, starting at her face and working his way down.

“All right, Sasha,” Grizzop says, grinning wide. He reaches for her hand again, draws her up to the head of the bed next to him, and rolls over into her lap. Sasha’s heart picks up speed again as he kisses the skin between her breasts, and her side, and her thigh, where the indent one of her sheaths left is still red, and dips his head lower. She glances up to see Hamid watching intently, his hand creeping into his own underwear, and when she looks back down, Grizzop is—

“Are you _still_ worked up about that?” Sasha says, incredulous.

“You’re the one who brought it up!” Grizzop says, poking at her navel. “I need to perform a thorough inspection before I can heal you ever again!”

Hamid gives a put-upon sigh and scoots farther up the bed, one hand still working in his underwear, and uses the other to press Grizzop’s face down where Sasha wants it. He squeaks against her, and his nose brushes between her folds and she gasps before Hamid, in an astonishing display of coordination she wouldn’t have thought him capable of, kisses her again.

Grizzop recovers and brings his hands up to her thighs as he starts licking at her, tentative but warm and smooth and enough for her to start sliding down the headboard toward him. She sighs into Hamid’s mouth and strokes her hands over his sides and down his back. The contrast between the scales and his warm skin is lovely, and she rests one hand on Grizzop’s fuzzy scalp while the other runs over Hamid’s front, lingering where she finds a smooth patch of scales across his belly. Although she’s very reluctant to stop any of what’s going on right now, she’s about to point out to Grizzop that Hamid is not a typical halfling when the door bursts open.

Sasha immediately pulls back from Hamid, drawing the dagger she keeps strapped to her bicep, and is two movements from flinging it at head height before she sees that it’s Wilde. She pokes Grizzop in the side of the head, and he jerks and hits an angle that makes her swear before emerging from her lap and noticing Wilde, who’s saying, “Grizzop, _where_ are your,” before he notices the state the three of them are in. His face moves through about five different expressions—he’s usually pretty easy to tell, like Hamid, although she’s pretty sure most of his are lies—too fast for her to track, before it settles on _annoyed_ and _smug_. “I suppose this neatly answers where you have been and what you have been doing, as well as who."

Hamid yelps, “Wilde, I left a _sock_ —” while Sasha starts breathlessly, “You had a _bird_ —”

“Did I?”

“—I swear none of you have heard of manners—”

“—never know when to take you seriously, half the time with you it’s _quips_ —”

“Why is this happening in my room!”

“—just wanted to see if I could sleep with them—”

“ _Did_ you?”

“—and we can’t bring Hamid to talk to Liliana, it seems like it was a pretty bad breakup—"

“Kind of in the middle of something!”

“—not bolted down— did you say _Liliana_ —"

“Liliana is dealt with, no thanks to you,” Wilde cuts in. He’s leant against the doorframe and his expression has shifted entirely to _delighted_. “She is thoroughly in custody. But if any of you is interested in a debriefing, I am very available to conduct it.”

Hamid starts giggling. Sasha takes a moment to mull it over before seeing the joke and joining in with Hamid, jostling Grizzop. Grizzop’s ensuing squawk sounds a lot like Barry’s. 

“Is this what you do?” Grizzop says, rubbing at his face. “You just employ people and then seduce them?"

“Not at all! I only seduce my favorite assets,” says Wilde.

Grizzop looks like he’s about to argue, but then his eyes widen. “Oh, wait! Wait! You should take _your_ shirt off!”

“Gladly?” says Wilde. “You all seem to have gotten a head start, though, is that all right with—”

“Come on, Oscar,” Hamid says, next to Sasha’s face. “Grizzop’s trying to make a _point_ and I guess we’re not getting anywhere until he’s satisfied.”

Wilde’s eyebrows are somewhere in the vicinity of the ceiling. “Sasha?”

Sasha has just about caught her breath from several minutes of being worked over by her two wonderfully competent friends and the adrenaline rush of the door opening. She deposits her knife on the side table, and considers what she knows about Wilde, what she saw him do in Paris, his tired face and his talented hands, and says, “Well, Bertie aside, it’s like, bonding or something, right?”

“Well said!'' says Wilde, and he closes the door behind him, leaning down to untie his shoes.

Grizzop seems to be about to say more, but Hamid uses his grip on his head to push him back down again and Sasha loses track of Wilde as Grizzop’s tongue moves more firmly against her and Hamid leans down to kiss at her chest. Within a few minutes, she can hear herself whining faintly on every panted exhale, and by the time she hears Wilde approaching the bed she’s arching up against Grizzop’s face.

Wilde’s hand comes up and strokes her scarred cheek before tilting her head toward his, and Grizzop’s grip on her legs tightens as he sucks at her, and Hamid thumbs at her nipple, and the noise she makes when she comes is lost in Wilde’s mouth.

“There,” says Grizzop, sounding content and rubbing at her gently with his finger. Hamid takes his hands off both of them and sets to work somewhat urgently on his own underwear. “Now, Wilde—”

“Couldn’t we have signed in the morning” says Sasha shakily. “You’re unbelievable—”

“What?” Hamid gasps from next to her. “Sasha—”

“Wilde!” says Grizzop, depositing a last kiss on Sasha’s thigh and sitting up between her legs. “Hold still!”

Wilde freezes in the process of sitting on the bed by Sasha’s feet, and Grizzop wriggles around until he can examine his middle. Wilde looks as confused as Sasha’s ever seen him. She guesses he sort of got off on the wrong foot. “What is this!” says Grizzop. Wilde yelps when his claw digs in next to his navel.

“Leave it, Grizzop!” says Hamid faintly, his hand working furiously somewhere to Sasha’s right.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific, Grizzop,” Wilde says, leaning on the name.

Sasha leans to the side to see around Grizzop’s ears. “See! Look! It’s not weird, it’s just one of those bits you have.”

Wilde gets as far as, “I must say I’m more interested in _other_ —” before Hamid lunges across the bed and wraps his arms around Wilde’s head. They fall back onto the mattress together and Sasha and Grizzop share a look.

Sasha leans down to kiss him. “It’s not that big a deal, really, Grizzop,” she says.

Grizzop fidgets and glances back at Hamid, who’s sitting on Wilde’s chest with Wilde’s wide hands grasping him by the hips. Sasha takes the opportunity to inspect what’s between Grizzop’s legs with mounting interest. “Yeah, all right,” he says, surprisingly, and then, “Two gold says it’s Wilde first.”

Sasha grins. “I’ll take those odds if we can touch them and _you_ stop ordering them around.”

Grizzop smirks back at her. “No promises.”

She moves closer to Hamid, but before she can do anything his head shoots up as the door rattles in its frame. He sighs, slides off of Wilde and the bed, straightens, takes five steps over to the door, and opens it. Sasha hears one of his weird multisyllabic words and the _shoom_ of his magic, and there’s suddenly a lot more light in the corridor. He nods, closes the door, locks it, and returns to the bed.

“On consideration, I think I’m glad I didn’t knock,” remarks Wilde from flat on his back, as Grizzop hauls Hamid back up into bed. Sasha swats Wilde in the nose with a pillow and considers the three of them, piled into a bed that is now definitely too small. She slides the last of her knives off her ankle onto the floor, and idly hopes they’re not feeling tired anymore. She’s pretty confident, at least, that they’re not going anywhere.


End file.
